Simplify
Your Inner Life & You'll Have
More To Give To The World by Janet Luhrs,
Editor, Simple Living Journalfrom the Winter, 1998 issue

A quote from Martin Luther
King inspired Donna Miller to simplify her inner life, so
she would have more to give the world. King said:

"No one has learned to live until they can
rise above the narrow confines of their
individualistic concerns to the broader concern of
humanity...

"In order to live creatively and
meaningfully, our self-concern must be wedded to
other concerns."

Miller, a therapist in Portland Oregon, realized that
if she didn't get to know herself on a deeper level, she
would not be able to help others. "Getting to know
yourself points you in the direction of clarifying your
values," she says. "The simple life is nothing
if not about clarifying what your values are. It gives
you information about where to put your energy.

"If your relationship isn't working, many other
things in your life may not work very well either,"
Miller says. "Conflict and poorly functioning
relationships can use up a lot of financial and emotional
resources. It's like a slow bleed. It just makes sense
for people to increase their awareness and skill level to
keep that from continuing. Then we free up our energy to
enhance personal satisfaction and productive contribution
to what we value in the world.

"Knowing yourself simplifies your life because
you know you have limited resources and you know that
it's a waste of your energy being upset about something
you can't do anything about. Getting to know yourself
points you in the direction of clarifying your
values."

In 1981 after a divorce, Miller began her personal
growth work. "I had a growing awareness that there
was a lot about me that needed to change," she says.
Her personal work helped her to define her own values,
and to free herself from society's definition of the good
life. "Being in touch with my own vision and dreams,
spending the bulk of my time doing what I love to do, and
more and more aligning myself with a sustainable
lifestyle are what is important to me.

"I've been fortunate enough to discover right
livelihood for myselfa lifelong fascination with
intimate relationships and conflict resolution."

Miller's fascination with conflict resolution was born
when she taught at the Buddhist University in Viet Nam
during the war. "I had a deep desire to foster
peaceful relationships," she says. She became
acquainted with the Buddhist Eight-fold Path to
Enlightenment which includes right view, right thinking,
and right livelihood. She returned from Viet Nam and
integrated what she learned from that experience into a
specialty in conflict resolution. She worked as a
corporate trainer and workshop leader.

"Unresolved or poorly resolved conflict destroys
our families, our infrastructure and our country,"
she says. "My focus is on educating people,
organizations and families to improve their understanding
and skills, and to motivate them to become masters at
resolving conflict nonviolently."

Now, Miller is moving into couple's work because she
sees couples and families as a basic unit of society.
(Couples can be any definition of intimate relationship.)
"It doesn't mean that I'm complete in my own growth,
but that I've got 15-20 years working on my issues, and
it feels appropriate for me to now grow into serving my
chosen community," she says.

"When I die, my contribution to this planet is
not that I recycled paper, rather, my focus is on helping
people resolve differences in a planetary sustainable
way.

"It may not seem that I am helping the planet,
but I'm reminded of the words of a man named Thomas Crum,
who uses martial arts to teach conflict resolution.
Someone said to him, 'There are 40 wars going on in the
world, and you might only reach fewer than 1000 people a
year. How do you possibly think you'll make a
difference?'

"He said, 'When I die what I want people to be
able to say about me was that I was one of the people who
was committed to turning it around.'

"That always struck me. He knew that in his life,
whether it looked like an overwhelming job or not, he was
going to keep trying. If I can have an impact on a few
thousand people's lives, it's enough for me because those
people are like yeast."

Miller hopes to help couples gain a deeper experience
of loving themselves and others via a healthier
relationship. That relationship, she believes, will free
people's energy so they can contribute to society.

"I want to help people do the foundation work so
more of us can move into that broader level of
service," she says. "If your marriage is
falling apart, or if you have emotional problems you've
never tackled, your attempts at service are going to be
stymied.

"Part of my work is helping couples and myself
really dig into the daily realities of getting along with
another person, of surfacing differences and working
through life from the mundane to the large core issues
that each couple generates. Work through what it really
means to live with another person," she says.

In her couples work, Miller frequently sees the
presenting issues of sex, money, parenting, household
chores, and autonomy vs intimacy. The underlying issues,
however, are people's inability to resolve differences
without reactivity, defensiveness, avoidance, contempt,
control and attempts to change and blame the other
person.

"I am reminded of ancient Vietnamese folk wisdom
that lays the four foundations for making the world a
better place:

Perfect the self. You can't save the world
if you are arrogant, immature, inexperienced or
emotionally unhealthy.

Nurture the family. Family is any unit of
people who live together.

Serve your community. Community can be
your neighborhood, the state, a special-interest
group, whatever.

And the world will save itslef.

"The message is very clear," Miller says.
"Stop blaming others, stop living like a victim,
stop thinking you can't make a difference. If you go out
and serve your community but you haven't done your own
growth work and nurtured your family, it will catch up
with you.

"You can have two people doing something positive
like environmental work, but they're screaming at each
other because they have different ideas on how to do it.